Author: stephentomlin

Bremenium

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Thought I’d celebrate being 75 last week by taking a walk at a place often driven past while heading over the border via Carter Bar. We started at ‘The Last Café in England’, something of a local institution, on the A68 in Rochester village. Coffees with a bacon butty, made deli style with focaccia bread, set us up nicely for the afternoon ahead. The café’s handsome resident hens are a law unto themselves as they weave in and out of customers, but I liked their casual audacity of their panhandling approach.

I’d called in here for the first time earlier this year returning from a social trip north and on that occasion discovered the neighbouring interpretation centre, a contemporary structure of wood and stone. (exterior, above) It gives an overview of the early history of Upper Redesdale, centred around the Roman fort, or rather series of forts, situated on the slopes above from 80 AD to AD 340 when it was abandoned.

LIDAR image of Bremenium at the interpretation centre

Bremenium fort stood guard over their cross border highway, known since the middle ages as Dere Street, and roughly aligned with the A68 today, which linked the Roman towns of Corbridge (Corstopitum) to the south and Melrose (Trimontium) to the north. That first fort, founded by the great Roman general Agricola, preceded the building of Hadrian’s wall by some 50 years. It was a vital logistical base and stopping off point on the  supply route that spearheaded their invasion of what is now Scotland. When the legions later withdrew Bremenium’s importance only grew as the most northerly permanent outpost of the empire. At its peak up to 1,000 men were stationed here; infantry, auxiliaries, scouts, cavalry as well as all those who supplied their needs in the civilian vicus and beyond.

We ambled along the lane that leads up to High Rochester, and the hamlet within what was Bremenium. Like Hadrian’s wall and other Roman sites it would be robbed of its vast resource of dressed stone in the centuries that followed the legions departure from Britannia in AD 410.

By the C16th our region would became notorious for cross border cattle raids by marauding native clans known as the Border Reivers. In 1581 a particularly bad incursion from Scotland laid waste to High Rochester. We could see that at least one of the existing buildings on the old fort site was originally a bastle, (above) a fortified stone house where animals and people were barricaded in during Reiver raids.

Later, after the union of the Crowns in 1603, what passed for peace and and the re-establishment of the rule of law slowly returned to these borderlands. That speeded up the fabric recycling process and most of what stone was left of the fort vanished from view only to reappear in the form of the houses, farms, cottages and barns scattered across this wild rugged landscape. The most impressive remains (above) are of the stout western walls and gateway, accessed by footpath from the lane.

A hot day, with a gentle breeze to cool us as we left the site for even higher ground. In the neighbouring field a stone waller was plying his ancient craft, under the shade of a small gazebo. Our metalled road became a gritted track then a grass path through rough pasture, leading to a farmhouse entrance with a cautionary sign for passing dog walkers…

Here on the edge of conifer forest we emerged on to extra wide gritted trackways. On one side of us lay the 93 acres of the Otterburn live firing ranges (a quarter of the national park) which have played a key role in training the military since 1911. On the other side is the 250 square miles of Kielder forest, the country’s biggest commercial softwood resource. Military vehicles and timber trucks both require this standard of roadway to get about. We had our mid walk snacks where an impressive metal cantilever bridge crossed the Sills burn, the little river in its steep sided valley, and the ‘place of the rushing waters’ that gave Bremenium its name.

Image: Great North Museum / Carole Raddato

One of the highlights of the Great North Museum in Newcastle is a deep relief stone frieze of Venus and attendant water nymphs which was found fronting  a water tank in the commander’s quarters in 1855. Its mix of Roman and Celtic styles makes it particularly engaging…Hard to  imagine the goddess and her attendants taking a dip here today though.

A little further on we crossed the line of  Dere Street. To our right, heading arrow straight into the firing ranges and Scotland beyond, was a well-kept road for farm, forestry and military access. But to our left a trace of pathway and the odd paved stone protruding from rush covered grazing were the only signs that the old Roman road had ever ran through there. The path’s dislodged weather beaten interpretive sign seemed to say it all.

Another sign we had to take notice of though was this one. Someone must have been out recently to set the dial at extreme risk of fire. Earlier when walking downhill through the forest we’d seen beaters lined up by the roadside, ready to be enlisted in putting out any nascent flames. Mindful of images of recent devastating wild fires elsewhere in the UK and on the continent, the sign was a suitably sobering reminder of seasonal danger.

At this point in our ramble opinions differed as to the return leg of our route. Our Northumberland National Park guidebook (published 1996) had got us into trouble before. A walk above Falstone last year promised a fine view over Kielder water from its highest point, but when we got there the subsequent conifer growth had completely blocked any vista. Similarly, this walk advised returning to Rochester by following the marked OS footpath between forest and stream. I was all for following the green dots, even though no sign of any path existed, while Kim favoured either going back the way we’d come or carrying on along the track to gain the A68 north of Rochester and loop back the long way.

She was reluctantly persuaded to opt for my route. Setting off we quickly found ourselves in the roughest of rough grazing before clambering through a bank of forest fringe, ducking under low sweeping branches. A relief to come across a style in the fence and some footprints. Traversing the steep sloping field ahead, full of chest high bracken, wasn’t the most encouraging of prospects. Making instead for gaps where they existed, we zigzagged on open ground, heading for the eminence of Bremenium ahead, with a visible path curling up to it, over the humps and bumps that are the remains of defensive ditches. Eventually then we got there, much to my relief. Kim said nothing, clearly not best impressed with my boys’ own spirit in pursuing the lost footpath that the guide book had directed us along.

Today a corner of Bremenium, bounded on this west side by the remnants of its thick wall foundations, is home to the annual Upper Redesdale Show Society who put on the Rochester Show on the last Saturday in September. The 2026 event will be their 135th gathering.

A rural community celebration and a far cry from the blood and guts history of the area. I pulled in at the Redesdale Arms for a refreshing pint in the garden overlooking the dale at its tranquil summer best. We relaxed in the late sun and had a laugh about that last leg scramble of a ramble. Once home the old guide book was duly consigned to the recycling bin. From now on, when walking in this neck of the woods, we’ll be using the up to date guides supplied by the Revitalising Redesdale Community Partnership. https://www.revitalisingredesdale.org.uk/

Rochester Show 2025

Saving Public Telephony

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I got a call this week from a stranger in a phone box on the Isle of Lewis. Well, not a stranger so much as a fellow arts worker I’d never met. Although in many ways I feel I do know him, having worked happily with his archetype before. Let’s just say we’re fellow travellers on the same road. William Arnold is an experimental photographic artist from Cornwall and he’s just completed a self-imposed eccentric mission to save public telephony in Lewis.

I’d read about his proposal in Caught by the River,  https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/ the online magazine covering the intersection of arts, nature and culture. (website) and was hooked. Maybe because of the shared Cornish connection and my own Theatre in Education tour of Lewis & Harris in the late 1970’s for Pitlochry Festival Theatre, the fact that william had studied at both Lancaster and Plymouth Universities. No, really it was because the whole idea was such a romantically eccentric connective adventure and I wanted to support it. Let William explain the self imposed task in his own words, from the Crowdfunder pitch (my edit):

‘This is a campaign aiming to cover expenses of a trip this August from Cornwall to the Outer Hebrides to make 52 calls from a BT telephone kiosk for it to be retained by law for another year. 52 calls made within a one year period is enough to prevent BT from disconnecting a kiosk under OFCOM rules.

Ideally, I will try to make these calls from the last double-door K6 kiosk in the country with a connected phone line….If this all sounds daft, it is probably because it is, but it is underpinned by a genuine desire to make connections between disparate rural and coastal localities, have real conversations that aren’t mediated by a screen and of course the phone might actually be useful in an emergency!

From poring over the available BT removals proposals [I have] identified those lucky few that escaped the cull and have been retained, presumably because somebody like me wrote a good enough email of complaint….Cross-referencing against a local council document which contained the phone numbers for these kiosks I have been able to establish that the lines are still connected.

I can’t offer any huge rewards, it is difficult to monetise a weird performance project like this and I’m not even going to try the Arts Council but you could think of it as a kind of rural touring theatre. Why the Outer Hebrides? I have since 2017 been making work considering the ritual landscapes of the Atlantic seaboard, in particular West Cornwall where I live and Na h-Eileanan Siar (Lewis & Harris). The work considers these landscapes in their contemporary context and considers the weight given to some markers of heritage value over others. I think there’s a link between the stones and the phones!’

Along with a bunch of other folk across the country we coughed up enough and more  in the way of sponsorship to enable our man to complete a 1,700 mile round trip from his home in Helston (Mainland England’s most southerly town) to the other end of the UK and back. William told me, in one of those essential 52 individual calls made to sponsors, that he’d broken the epic drive staying with his parents in Northumberland and would be overnighting in a B&B in the Lake District on the long trek back. While in Lewis he’d been hosted by an old friend.

As the southern part  of the UK sizzled in the current extended heat wave our lone hero was ensconced in a unique K6 double doored box next to a post box in the remote crofting township of Einacleit on Loch Uig, fierce wind hurling all about him outside, with rainwater filling an inch of floor within. (Double doors can more safely withstand ferocious winds compared to a conventional single one). Armed with a stash of silver to feed the box, his connection was crystal clear to our own land line. We joked in our chat that  local folk seeing him in the box on the phone for such a long time might conclude he must be calling the Samaritans!

One question I failed to put to William was what if the good folk of Einacleit, by not using the phone box enough (presumably because they all have mobile phones) felt that the loss of their BT box to be inevitable, if regrettable.

Uig beach: Image credit Explore Isle of Lewis

William, like all cultural practitioners in our day, is media savvy. The Scottish Sun picked up on his mission and ran a comprehensive story on the project. Likewise it was a topic on BBC R4’s Today programme on Mon 10th August, and no doubt on other platforms too. I hope he benefits from the whole experience and look forward to seeing what other imaginative socially relevant happenings his fertile imagination will conjure up in future. https://williamarnold.net/

For an inspiring read about a handful of other surviving K6 telephone boxes around the UK here’s an article by the 20th Century Society marking the 40th anniversary of the listing of these iconic British structures: https://c20society.org.uk/news/quirky-kiosks-40th-anniversary-of-first-phonebox-listing-marked

Helston, The guildhall (with a traditional telephone box getting a look in)

Marchmont

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A while back we were in the audience for a talk at Newcastle Central library, part of a nationwide book launch, given by the academic, multi-award winning writer and broadcaster Dr James Fox. (https://www.drjamesfox.co.uk/)

James had been all over the UK unearthing the vital if under appreciated role of craft makers in forging our country’s cultural history and local identity. Dry stone-wallers, clockmakers, blacksmiths, weavers, milliners, saddlers, cutlers and coopers are among the array of past and present practitioners who get a mention in Craftland: A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades. It has also been broadcast, with the author reading, as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. (Sadly not currently available on BBC i-player)

James’s understanding and eloquent evocation of past and present practices couldn’t fail to draw us into his own well-crafted narrative. Beyond buying the handsomely produced book we were reminded that the best way to ensure a future for today’s craftspeople is by seeking out and, if possible, paying good money for their unique hand crafted products.

John Williamsom is a traditional Devon stave basket maker. We bought one of his baskets a couple of years ago for general purpose use around the garden. https://basketmakersassociation.org.uk/makers/

Earlier this month, we headed north to an open studios event, near Greenlaw, deep in the Berwickshire countryside. The winding 3.5 mile private drive from the village, along a leafy single track lane, hinted at its final destination being a grand one, which duly turned out to be the case.

Marchmont is an C18th Palladian mansion at the heart of a 5,500 acre farming estate. The house with its grand Georgian interiors and sumptuous art works is only open to the public for a few days each year, and for staging occasional operatic and other musical events. In recent times, up until 2005, the main building was a Sue Ryder home before becoming a private residence once again.( https://www.marchmonthouse.com/)

But it wasn’t the house we’d come to see today. Circling its imposing grand frontage we arrived at the equivalent of a town house’s tradesmen’s entrance – the old coach house, stables, garages and adjacent walled garden.

The solidly graceful pink sandstone courtyard was abuzz with activity. This substantial hub is home to the workshops of silversmiths and weavers, furniture makers, potters, artists and illustrators. Converted, managed and given rent free.

Particularly struck by the beautiful chairs in oak or ash with their rush seats, all worked from locally sourced timber and sedge. The makers demonstrated turning, steam bending and finishing.

The open day also encompassed the mansion’s former walled garden and its interlinked elegant garden rooms and conservatories.

The planting of the expansive garden, contrasting repetitive masses of meadow plants contrasting playfully with the formal lines of topiary, hedging and wide flower borders was a pleasure to explore.

Commissioned contemporary works and the estate’s original classical garden statuary combine to make this walled garden a fine outdoor sculptural gallery.

All the above has been made possible by the charitable foundation set up in memory of the late entrepreneur and investor Hugo Burge (1972-2023) whose family trust have run the Marchmont estate since 1988. (https://www.hugoburgefoundation.org/)

A self-confessed arts and crafts geek this much loved charismatic benefactor did not hold back from putting his money where his mouth was. Inspired by the latent talent to be found here in his adoptive home land in the Borders, Hugo commissioned art works and opened garden and stable block for arts residencies and educational courses.

Which brings me back to Craftland author James Fox who is also the Hugo Burge Foundation’s creative director, part of a management team that is realising the wider ambitions of its late patron in supporting and developing craft based activities.

And not only here in the countryside but further afield in urban settings. I wish them well in their work and hope they can interact with a wider range of lesser known artisan trades before those more endangered craft and their skills pool disappear for good.

‘The wonderful thing about adventures is you never quite know where you are going…’ ( Hugo Burge)

In 2019 we had a section of our dry stone field wall re-built. Here the guys have started work, lining up coping stones before carefully dismantling the wall itself.

Meadows And Mortality

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Regular readers of these occasional notes will know I’ve been gradually forming and managing a meadow area in our country garden since I came to live at the Corner house nine years ago.. The tough grasses have been weakened through autumn seeding of yellow rattle, with various meadow flower mixes to follow. Before seeding  I manhandled a hired petrol driven scarifier over the ground until its cumbersome circling caused a strained muscle which finally caused me to desist.

The seasonal groundwork  paid off. Every summer we enjoy a different plant line up. Initially dominated by poppies, ox eye daisies. Later, buttercups claimed the wetter end while sorrel and bugle, alongside umbellifers like cow parsley, yarrow and pig nut have found their happy place in the drier or thinner soiled sections. I even chanced a few plugs round the lusher grass margin – musk-mallow, ragged robin, meadow crane’s bill, chickweed. They hold their own, but do not spread. A kneel down reveals the arching form of that smallest of pasture  flowers, field forget-me-not. (above) A tiny delicate delight.

This spring my heart sank when I realised that one plant in particular had usurped the field. Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata) is suddenly  everywhere. It’s also escaped into the mown grass area that border the roughly triangular island of meadow slope, which is more problematic. The semi-parasitic yellow rattle has worked  only too well in weakening the variety of vigorous grasses whose roots it feeds on. Those grasses have been replaced by masses of vigorous free seeding plantain, with its deep root and basal flattening leaves. Most of the more delicate seeds listed in the original meadow mix have never been spotted.

Orchids in amongst the plantain and yellow rattle

Or so I thought…Returning from holiday,  looking with joy over the emerging meadow, I counted more than sixty orchids. Thinned grasses have allowed these beauties to find the light, despite the dominating presence of plantain. Although photo ID tells me these are common spotted orchid I have my doubts as there’s not a spot of any kind on their basal leaves and the flower configuration seems not to quite fit the description.

Then I recalled that in the early days of managing this patch I’d bought a couple of orchid plugs (variety unknown) from a small local independent nursery that was closing down and had subsequently planted them on the meadow margin. They reappeared for a few years and then disappeared. There are 57 varieties of native orchid in the UK and ours may be a hybrid of common varieties, as originally sourced from that local nursery. The important thing is that they’re back and thriving in this dynamic ecosystem. As orchids depend on a symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi in the soil to allow their minuscular seeds to germinate and grow we clearly have a meadow in good heart.

All plants have an essential pollinating relationship with moths, butterflies, hoverflies, bees etc. The other night I set the moth trap in the meadow and amongst the haul was this Common Swift, (Korscheltellus lupulina) which  feeds on the roots of grasses and small plants, while its larvae live underground.

Overlooking the garden, low down on the north facing wall of the studio/office, sits our new bird box with camera. A fabulous family Christmas gift which, when set up in early April, attracted tenants in the shape of blue tits. The little birds painstakingly assembled layer upon layer of moss, sheep wool and feathers. The birds deep dive manoeuvres to mould the cup of nest was fascinating to observe and we waited with baited breathe to see one egg after another laid. At a dozen the reproductive strategy was clear. A high loss number.

The chicks hatched, one by one, only to weaken and die in much the same way until eventually only two feathered nestlings remained. They looked ready to fledge. The next day though they too had expired. Those two fledglings apart, what had happened to their siblings? No sign of them so can only presume the parents had disposed of their tiny corpses. And what of those adult birds? Did the chicks starve because the parents could not source enough caterpillars to feed their brood? Had one or both parents been suddenly predated, causing the last two chicks to starve to death? Did parasites or bacterium play a part in their demise?…We’ll never know but it was a fascinating, if sobering, opportunity to witness at close hand avian life & death through the intimate unblinking eye of technology.

By contrast our returning  swallows present with another successful breeding achievement. Two fledglings have joined the parents in aeronautical manoeuvres in the skies above. Their year on year return to the nest under the open porch roof always gladdens the heart. This year’s brood are more prone than usual to making attempted fly throughs when the door to the garden is open. We have got used to coaxing them back out but now keep the door closed more than usual. The young hare that spends so much of its time in and around our house has been seen in the past to stop at the doorstep to sniff the air before thinking better of it and lopping off again.

Down by the ponds plant growth has been more fecund than ever. Water avens seeding, different varieties of irises in bloom, intermingling yellows of monkey flower and native buttercup. Surface blanket weed regularly  removed here on the deeper of the two wildlife ponds to allow the lily and water hawthorn to spread. Unseen below, the breeding palmate newts continue to thrive in a cool dense environment of oxygenating weeds teeming with micro-insect life.

The tups on the crags continue to do sterling work in munching through the majority of our green garden waste, delivered them in the wheelbarrow.

Monumental Tales

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St Nicholas Church, Denston

Our medieval themed treats for the week away in Suffolk included visits to two Grade I listed buildings with interlinked family ties. The first was the parish church of St Nicholas in the neighbouring parish of Denston, regarded as one of the finest late perpendicular village churches in England. (https://shct.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Denston-Suffolk.pdf)

We had a chat with three local parishioners who were doing housekeeping on the late afternoon of our visit. Learned that by the 1980’s the church roof was in imminent danger of collapse and that the parish (pop.100) raised, with outside help from individuals and church restoration charities £90,000 to completely re-roof the building and undertake other essential repairs.

The east end window is a C19th addition, consisting of an eye catching  medley of original medieval glass fragments manufactured in Norwich.

Because it was never significantly altered after the reformation a host of lively original wood carvings of animals on bench ends and roof timbers remain. The mellow stone and timber are displayed at their best in a space lifted with light, thanks to the wide aisle and high clerestory windows. A wonderfully calm and ethereal space which I felt would lend itself well to concerts and talks.

Sir John Denston portrayed at Long Melford Church

One of the landowners involved in the textile trade that so enriched this part of the world was Sir John Denston of Denston Hall (1420-1463) He married Katherine Clopton whose family were among the richest and most powerful of Suffolk’s wool merchants, based at Kentwell Hall not far away, near Long Melford.

Long Melford Holy Trinity; Image Church Website

Set imposingly along a ridge at the north end of Long Melford, Holy Trinity is St Nicolas writ large, Hailed as one of England’s grandest parish churches its elegant mass is complete with adjoining Lady Chapel. Its grace is further enhanced with attractive churchyard flower planting between buttresses.

Almost cathedral like in its structure and internal aura, the church miraculously retains eight bays of late medieval glass. Being  likenesses of mostly secular figures, members of powerful local families, they were spared destruction after the Reformation and during the civil wars of the C17th.

One of those grandees immortalised in glass is Elizabeth Talbot, an heiress married to the region’s rising Yorkist magnate Sir John Howard (Later Duke of Norfolk, killed at Bosworth fighting for Richard III) We’re invited to look closely and decide whether or not she was the model for the Duchess of Hearts in Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The artist is known to have visited and admired these windows.

Tenniel illustration for Alice: Image credit British Museum

Sir John Denston, as befits his status and family connections, has a bay all to himself. Various grand monuments to the Clopton dynasty are here too. Sir John Clopton had a vicarious existence balancing loyalties in the Wars of the Roses. Perhaps it was in gratitude for his survival after battle and subsequent imprisonment that he funded the church’s restoration in its present form between 1462 –1497.

The final resting place of John and Katherine Denston though is back at St Nicholas. And what a monument. Startling to encounter when unprepared, as we were. It’s believed to be the only remaining double cadaver church tomb anywhere in the country. The couple’s stone effigies lie undercover, in process of decay, exposed in shrouds of wool tied over their heads. Sir John’s likeness is strikingly macabre in its exposed state. Memento Mori indeed. Son-in-law John Broughton and Sir John Howard were charged under Denston’s will to set up St Nicholas as a Collegiate Church in 1475. A resident warden and priests were paid to pray in perpetuity for the deceased’s soul. That eternity only lasted awhile as the final stage of dissolution during Edward VI’s reign in 1548 bought the practice to an end.

Another curious ecclesiastical monument, once common but now rare, is the display of arms of a local landowning family within their parish church. Here in the south chapel – safely out of thieves reach – are helm, tabard and sword of the Robinson family, later occupants of Denston Hall.

Medieval Wool Trade: Credit Look & Learn Magazine

All in all some interesting connections and an immersive experience in Church of England buildings which retain a strong sense of former Catholic orthodoxy and vernacular artistic exuberance. Much is owed hereabouts to a wealth creating home spun industry built on the backs of sheep.

Lodes, Rodes and Sedge

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There’s some quiet magic at work when you enter the world of Wicken Fen. Coming from the England of stone walls, fast streams, lush valleys and high moors I’ve nursed a lifelong need to sample the exact opposite. Finally I got the chance to do just that, in this corner of Cambridgeshire, where  horizontal and vertical combine to define new perspectives and land and waterways interact on different levels under a carapace of yawning skies.

Wicken is a complex interrelated wetland that is England’s most species rich nature reserve, as well as being its most studied. This National Trust site welcomes some 70,000 visitors annually; not that it felt at all crowded on a midweek day in May. Quite the opposite!

Over 2,000 years Romans, Normans, Medieval monks, Stuart Merchant Adventurers, Victorian improvers, modern governments and agribusinesses have played their part in draining, containing and cultivating the great rural swathe of eastern England known as the Fens. The bulk of England’s grain, vegetable and fruit harvests are produced in the region as a result. The changes to the landscape have been profound and widespread. Less than 1% of that original wetland ecosystem remains, and nearly all of it is at Wickham.

Planting Little Gem Lettuce in a Fenland Field: Credit NFU Online

So how come it’s still here? Partly because in 1637 an armed uprising by locals fearful of losing their livelihoods fishing, water fowling and sedge harvesting prevented the Anglo-Dutch drainage projects of the area’s aristocratic landowners from going ahead here, like they had elsewhere. By the end of the 19th century, naturalists, academics and enlightened landowners who prized this traditionally managed oasis for for its rare bird, moth and butterfly populations took action to preserve and extend it. In 1899 the newly formed National Trust bought two acres of Wicken Fen – the charity’s first ever nature reserve. Now acknowledged as’ the birth place of ecology’ it has grown to be a 629 nature acre (254 hectare) reserve of international importance featuring wet grassland, scrub woodland, reedbeds and sedge fen. More than 9,300 species have been recorded.

The reserve is connected by a network of boardwalks, paths, bridges and droves (grass roads) alongside ditches, dykes, meres, banks and lodes (canalised waterways). These waterways form part of the River Cam navigation and drainage catchment.

There’s only so much you can take in on one day at such a place. We set off from the Visitor Centre, with its chalk boards listing an array of daily bird sightings, to circumnavigate adjacent Sedge Fen. It proved a gentle introduction and easy perambulation, mainly on boardwalks fashioned from black recycled plastic.

Passed the remains of old clay pits, now deep ponds with coots scuttling, used when this area was a brickworks. Passed through islands of willow and alder buckthorn carr (wet scrub) alive with reed warbler and other bird song. The neighbouring seasonally wet grasslands (above) were cordoned off, for conservation reasons they’re not open for visitors until the summer. Saw Chinese Water Deer, an invasive species, nibbling the turf.

Vertical features have increased pull on the eye in such a landscape. The black wooden wind pump with its white sails is one such iconic marker. A relic of another former Fenland industry, peat digging.

Pushing a barrow of peat turves across a Fenland waterway c.1900

Before steam and diesel, wind power did the draining of the turf pits (peat diggings) so these small mills were once a common sight.

The modern structure seen here is a new wind pump, funded by the Environment Agency in 2011 to draw alkaline ground water to Sedge Fen from nearby Monk’s Lode in the winter months, helping keep the peat soil from drying out, a very real threat as the climate changes.

At this point, where Monk’s Lode meets Wicken Lode, is where we came across narrow boats moored. The name of one of them ‘Coo…ee Too’ a pun on a somewhat larger ocean going vessel!

After a picnic lunch we followed paths that led in turn to the straight lines of droves dividing East and West Meres from Baker’s and Adventure’s Fens. And what a contrast. Here we looked down on to swathes of land drained for farming centuries back. An unforeseen consequence was the drying out and sinking of the land, leaving vast acreages below remaining water level. Reflooded by the Trust post WW2 the new bogland and pools in the peat created as a result now attract masses of wildfowl, especially in winter.

We lingered at one of the hides, hearing more birds than we saw. Later, some brave folk passed us on tandem bikes, hired at the visitor centre, bumping furiously along the deceptively uneven drove surface, laughing in mixed measures of anxiety and delight.

Image of Konik ponies at Wicken Fen: National Trust

We glimpsed a distant group  of Konik ponies at pasture. Together with a herd of handsome highland cattle, these introduced conservation grazers free range the reserve. The animals contrasting complimentary grazing styles play a key role in managing wet grasslands, doing the job people once did, keeping the ever encroaching scrub at bay. They also distribute wild flower seed in their droppings! Sedge today is cut by machine where once the fenmen cut, stacked, stored and transported the material for a wide range of uses in the textile and building trades.

Opposite the visitor centre, off the narrow approach lane, is the pretty C18th Fenman’s Cottage, restored in 1990 and furnished as it might have been in the 1930’s. A must see that gives a fascinating insight into an age old relationship between people, buildings and place.

The cottage is vernacular architecture defined by the use of  locally sourced material; from dried peat  bricks to floor tiles and daub plaster of gault clay, thatching with reeds and sedge.  

Here, for many centuries, local families made a fiercely independent living from a raft of interrelated successional labours. Sedge, reed or willow harvesting, fishing, eel or mole catching, wildfowling, digging peat and clay, cutting litter (marsh hay) or transporting a wide range of goods in and out by water….all dictated by the seasons.

Under ambitious plans set out in the ‘Wicken Fen Vision’ the reserve is set to expand downstream, right to the outskirts of Cambridge. It’s the NT’s commitment to tackling climate change by re-establishing a lost landscape at scale, including nature friendly farm holdings on its edges acting as a buffer zone for the core fenland.

I wish them well in their mission. The Trust is protecting a treasure horde of vulnerable species and preserving precious peatlands, while still enabling  access for all  to enjoy this magnificent if fragile ecosystem. Balancing the need to increase self-sufficiency  and security of food production while including nature as a key to managing a healthy and sustainable countryside remains one of the most pressing challenges of our times.

Past Present

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Its floors complain with every tread, soft echoes of its long since dead…A stubborn, time-worn, tender place.  (From a poem by Christopher Skaife)

Leaving Norwich we drove southwards into Suffolk. A winding country lane and the turn off we were looking out for. Down a rutted unmade sunken track, concrete ford over dried up stream, parking at lane’s end. All our stuff offloaded into two waiting wheelbarrows. Anticipation rising, we pushed on up the cracked earth path between swooping acres of barley and lush hedge of young elm, field maple and hawthorn. At the woodland ridge, we turned the corner and…there it was.

Looking like a film set, real yet unreal. No driveway, hedge, wall, garden, garage, aerial, telephone pole or other visual anchor of our times. Self-contained, giving off a curious sense of mirage, as if it could vanish at any moment, its plaster glowing in the late afternoon sun. A present from the past, waiting to be unlocked and occupied in the present.

Purton Green is the only surviving building of a lost medieval settlement, on an abandoned highway leading to the great abbey and pilgrimage shrine of England’s first patron saint, St Edmund the Martyr at Bury, a few miles north-east….We later enjoyed an afternoon exploring its extensive civic gardens where the abbey once stood. A modern bronze statue of the ninth century Saxon king of East Anglia, executed for his faith by marauding Danes, stands in the grounds there.

Built as a hall house sometime around 1270, probably by Walter de Priditon,  Steward to the Earl Marshal, a high ranking official of the royal court. It was remodelled in the 15th century and again, when by now a farmhouse, with internal alterations c.1600. Slowly declining in status and condition over time It was saved from total dereliction in 1970 by a nascent conservation charity.

Our medieval homestead was divided when built, as now, into three parts. The service end, where most of the daily work took place. Communal hall with central hearth, where the household met and dined in their social order. The Parlour, inhabited by the owner and his family, is now the cosy cottage like heated section that was our base for the week.

This extraordinary building is distinguished by its arcaded service area and cross frame scissor braces stretching to the open thatched roof. I love the way new replacement woodwork harmonises with the original timber structure.

Because East Anglia lacks natural stone a ready supply of timber from copious woodlands was the obvious building material. Cut ‘green’ and easily worked the individual components would have been assembled then slotted together and raised on site; its many posts, joints and braces secured with wood pegs. Walls made from a weave of hazel wands and daub (clay and straw) completed the construction…The original pre-fabricated building!

Building ‘green’ leaves properties to warp and shift  with age, a quaint feature we’re all familiar with in old timber frame buildings. This one in Norwich is a good example. Was also taken with the literal ‘door step’ here at Purton Green. A minor human inconvenience to secure a strong frame and keep out dust and mud.

Exploring the immediate environment by public footpath I stumbled across a stretch of former moat under a dense canopy of foliage. (The OS map shows a remarkable number of moated properties in this area). The ground was bone dry and we didn’t see a soul all week. Hares were in evidence though, with birdsong aplenty. At one point a painted lady butterfly landed at my feet.

The only melancholy note of our stay was struck by the sad ash tree out front by the dried out shallow pond. A victim, like so many across the land, of ash dieback.

The most common native broadleaf tree in these parts has to be the horse chestnut. We admired several fine specimens in full flower, which reminded me of lines from Philip Larkin’s poem ‘The Trees’: Yet still the unresting castles thresh/ In fullgrown thickness every May./ Last year is dead, they seem to say,/ Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

You can read about Purton Green and the charity that owns it here:

https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/properties/purton-green

Star of the East

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Country dwellers like us could take a shine to any city that presents like East Anglia’s regional centre. The centre of Norwich feels more like a town than a metropolis, retaining ancient street patterns while much new building complements the old. Following the trend of breaking  identity down into quarters also suits it well. We stayed two nights at the Maids Head, a venerable independent family hotel, right in the centre. The inhouse hire offer of Bentleys and bicycles must be unique.

From this base on Tombland (Old Norse for ‘open ground’) we took an evening stroll along the quayside that skirts the encircling River Wensum, from Fye bridge to Pull’s ferry. Thanks to the demolition of the former city gas works in recent times that stretch of riverside path is now continuous.

Curiosities here included seeing the remains of a sluice gate and swan pit. With their wings clipped the birds were once culled for feasts at the neighbouring Great Hospital. Formerly part of a monastery and still linked to the cathedral, it continues its caring role as a sheltered housing complex – minus the swan diet.

We watched a male bird waddling along the path while his mate sat on a nearby nest in the reedy corner of a fenced off pond.

Cow Tower (c.1398) is an early example of an elevated gun battery set on a bend in the river. Originally part of the medieval city wall, it  looms up as a flinty floorless finger against the tranquil watery scene below.

Later, in the castle, we’d see the work of Romantic era artists from East Anglia like John Sell Cotman and John Crome. Here’s Crome’s bucolic summer view of the riverside hereabouts in 1819.

Bishops Bridge is a striking original structure of stone and brick, dating from 1340. The oldest span over the Wensum and once a major portal in the settlement’s walled defences. Terraced housing and small houseboats moored on the opposite bank give a peaceful counterpoint to passing traffic. A reminder of navigation that brought boats back and forth to the city’s teeming quays, helping Norwich develop as a major population centre of medieval England. Home to a thriving nexus of craftsmen, artisans and merchants.

The stone used to build Norwich cathedral was imported  all the way from Caen in Normandy. To accommodate that final leg a short canal was dug here in the 1090’s, linking waterway to building site. Now long filled in we passed under the overarching ferryman’s house heading along the cut’s former course, now Ferry Lane, to the Cathedral close.

Next day found us digging further the city’s rich Norman legacy. From the newly refurbished castle to that imposing cathedral. The medieval splendour of the roof bosses in the cathedral is something to behold (preferably with binoculars!) Deeply impressed with the degree of visual narrative power so cleverly compressed in those vivid stone roundels.

The bosses were incorporated into the new stone roof of the late C15th. Yet for most of their existence they have been hidden from view, whitewashed over from the Reformation until late Victorian times. In 1932 they got repainted in their original bright colours.

An extraordinary achievement, 255 in total, looking down from on high above nave and choir, depicting biblical scenes and characters, from the Creation to the Last Judgement. I wondered if the much loved mystery plays performed by trades guilds through the streets of Norwich and other big towns had  inspired the stonemasons in their turn.  

One of the best meals of our holiday was had in this gracious medieval building, the Britons Arms.  In the early C15th this was a ‘Beguinage’, a community of lay single women who devoted themselves to a life of prayer and charitable work. Today its secular tenants create some great dishes cooked with care and skill in the most relaxed and ambient of settings.

Taking a break from matters medieval, we stumbled upon a hidden gem, the Plantation Garden, situated just outside the centre. It’s a redundant chalk pit lovingly fashioned in the second half of the C19th into a charming  green oasis by local businessman Henry Trevor, often re-using redundant building material in the process. The villa he had built as his family home overlooks the tree bordered steep sided three acre spread.

And finally…the steps of the C20th Art Deco City Hall not only give a fine view over the permanent market to the castle keep beyond but also yield overlooked sights of their own.

18 large round plaques grace the great bronze doors of the hall, chronicling Norwich’s history and its diverse businesses… I particularly liked this one of the former soda works.

We only saw a fraction of what Norwich has to offer and would gladly return to experience more. With a medieval church round every city centre corner, a maze of lanes and alleys, a wealth of business large and small, independents and chains, with its universities, museums and the wider cultural offer its civic star is rising. May its light continue to shine.

Castle Acre

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Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. ( Shakespeare: Sonnet 73)

On the road to Norwich to start our East Anglian holiday we stopped off in north Norfolk to explore Castle Acre. It’s a quiet spot embedded into a rolling landscape of arable chalklands, woods and shallow valleys. But today the air was riven by the passing sorties of fighter planes. A reminder that American jets stationed at nearby RAF bases are actively involved in that country’s current conflict with Iran.

It was military conquest following the battle of Hastings that brought a veteran of that regime changing conflict, William de Warenne, to these parts in the 1080’s. He and his successors planned and built a whole new settlement consisting of priory, village, parish church and castle. Their main seat though remained at Lewes in Sussex.

Artist’s impression of Castle Acre priory as was

Today the impressive remains of priory (dissolved at the reformation in the 1530’s) and castle (abandoned by the 14th century) stand either side of a well to do pretty village complete with pub, teashop and convenience store.

Castle Acre castle site: Source – Wikipedia

Arriving in this region you notice just how much flint is in evidence as building material, alongside other local stone and timber frame. The historic remains are in the care of English Heritage while the estate lands that surround it remain with the Coke family, earls of Leicester, landowners since the mid 17th Century. We noticed they were following the national trend in rewilding parts of the land, especially around waterways and hedgerows.

The priory was a wonder to discover as the ruins are so extensive and allow you to build a coherent picture of it as the grand self-contained community it once was. On entering the grounds you’re immediately struck by the C.12th west front facade of the church and  tower. The adjacent west range was the guest house for important secular visitors. We then ascended stone stairs to the Prior’s chambers, which includes a well-lit hall and private chapel.

These sections of the priory  were always roofed, unlike the religious buildings which were ruthlessly stripped following dissolution for their valuable construction material. It became a farmhouse and stores with the former priory ruins and meadows grazed by stock or otherwise farmed. In the  C.18th and C.19th growing appreciation of the picturesque and further interpretation and recording by antiquarians and artists allowed the Castle Acre complex to be seen in a new light and by 1929 the government  Ministry of Works were allowing visitors regular public access to both priory and castle.

Of the ruined complex, largely stripped of dressed facing stone, the most evocative are the parts that betray human interaction, like the well-worn stairs that led up to the monks dormitory, where the brothers slept in their robes of black and white. The reredorter (literally, ‘at the back of the dormitory’) is a narrow two story building which was used on an industrial scale as a latrine block. Underneath is a watercourse designed to carry the waste away.

The castle footprint is huge, with steep embankments, ditches and motte. The De Warenne’s first buildings however were a relatively modest affair set within the outer defences.

It was only later, in the C13th civil wars that raged between nobles supporting the rival claims of Matilda and Stephen to the English throne that it was rapidly transformed from fortified house to full scale fortress, with barbican and inner bailey additions.

That protection stretched to an outer town wall and a bailey gate entrance, through whose narrow archway we carefully drove on entering and departing.

Norwich Castle Great Hall

In Norwich we were impressed with the multi-million pound makeover of the great Norman castle (or rather the remaining keep) which has been five years in the making and feel it would make for a worthy winner of this year’s ‘Museum of the Year’ award. The great hall would have been similar to the De Warenne’s eventual fortress creation at Castle Acre.

Two exhibits displayed in the revamped medieval treasures display pertain to Castle Acre. This C15th parchment chant book, made and used by the Castle Acre monks, is  of vellum (calfskin) oak and leather and small enough to be held in the hand. It’s complete with instructions (in red) for use in services as the brethren processed through the priory on different feast days throughout the year. The Cluniac order, founded in the French town of Cluny in the  6th century, strictly followed  the rules set down by St Benedict, but was also renowned for a love of art and decoration, which would have resulted in the walls of their establishments being brightly coloured and expressive.

There’s a timeless quality to this simple board game of Nine Men’s Morris made of chalk with horse motif, found at the castle in Castle Acre. Two players try to place three of their counters in a row, allowing them to remove one of their opponent’s pieces. Whoever removes enough of their opponent’s counters to prevent them from moving is the winner.

Castle Acre is a fantastic place to get an idea of how the temporal and spiritual life of a rural medieval planned settlement would have appeared. Well worth a visit, especially at mid-week when we were only two of a handful of visitors at the priory. More at https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/castle-acre-castle-acre-priory/

Hedges, Nests and Willow

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Who doesn’t want to see the back of winter?  The trouble is winter doesn’t want to see the back of us just yet. Spring is a tad tardy in appearing here in the borderlands, arriving in fits and starts. But the longer days and gradual greening is cause for cheer; the soundtrack of curlew, skylark and lapwing balm for the ear.

Good progress on the mile of roadside hedging either side of our abode established by our friends and neighbours at Southridge. I continue the volunteer monitoring, rectifying fallen guards, replacing rotten or broken canes. Now hawthorn and hazel, blackthorn and run ahead roses are breaking cover, waving in the wind atop their protective plastic tubes.

Earlier this year, one misty day, we stopped to right a cast ewe in our neighbour’s field. The animal’s gravid barrel body and dense fleece had stopped it righting itself, so glad to lend a helping hand. The flock were taken off last week, back to the farm, and now the biggest and best pasture is filling with ewes and lambs.

Next to it our four acres of rough grazing is back to host the tups – Texels and the Border Leicester ram who has featured in this diary before. They loll about not doing much, like old fellas down the working mens club, while their offspring skip and leap about on the other side of the dry stone wall, oblivious of their presence.

Delighted to catch hares re-appearing in the garden at all hours, whether grazing or just passing through. With no dogs or cats on the premises they have no fear of being driven off. Am convinced these particular hares are the adult form of those last seen as leverets on summer evenings, gathered as a family group on the garden paths whilst their dam was out and about foraging.

Earlier this year I decided to create a dead hedge in the garden. By recycling as vertical stakes the best preserved chestnut paling in the picket fence that separated kitchen garden from meadow we were able to establish the hedge’s breadth and length. Then built up horizontal layering and weave with pruned branches of old willow, alder and various woody bushes over following weeks. A remarkably satisfying transition, relatively easy to accomplish, in the rustic tradition!

We’re hoping this dead hedge will benefit resident wildlife, act as a windbreak, and add another blended structural feature to the garden. I’d been gradually repositioning the bigger species of daffodils along the former fence line over the years so pleased to see they sit equally well, framed by the new hedge.

I never knew there were so many varieties of willow. In the wake of my clearing old established ones  from the largest copse the serious family gardeners/ craftswomen planted these varieties in wet ground and large pots with an eye to harvesting for weaving into baskets and wreathes. I will chip  what they don’t use for mulching and adding to compost. The straight young wands go down the throat of my noisy little chipper a treat and cause it few digestion problems, unlike tough knotty stuff like hawthorn or blackthorn.

A lovely family Christmas present was a solar powered bird box with camera. Setting it up proved a tad tricky (It helps to read the instructions about operational range from router) but after a few false starts and final technical know how applied by the giver, we were finally set and ready to go.

Within hours the camera showed us a shake of moss on the box floor. I took that to be a down payment by a would be tenant and gradually more material appeared. At first I thought a wren might be the mystery depositor but soon we caught sight of the visitor. Rather unsurprisingly it turned out to be one of the blue tits that colonise the garden every year.

The bird’s hyperactive action in burrowing and fluffing the moss with its wings before stopping to view the result and flying off was a revelation. That led us to think it must be drying through aerating the fluffed up soft material. Constant re-arrangement takes place as a dense pile builds. Strands of dried grasses and cloudy swirls of sheep’s wool have been integrated into the uniform bed of green and we await full time occupation and laying of eggs.

A few days ago we recorded this remarkable night time image. The adult bird has spent a lot of time preparing to roost by pulling out hundreds of its feathers to form a warm duvet to maintain life through the cold night. Early morning will be spent relaying them.

Meanwhile in the open gated garden shed we call the railway hut – the body of a former goods wagon – blackbirds have again taken up residence. In previous years they favoured a seed tray on a high shelf to support their intricate weaved abode. This year, oblivious of our entrances and exits inches from them, their nest sits exposed atop coat hook nails flush by the doorway. The hen, all head and tail, totally silent and still, keeps a sharp eye on our comings and goings.

Post publication update: Two new arrivals

Starting to trap moths again. Amongst their number the usual early arrivals on the spring scene like Hebrew Character, Clouded Drab (pictured) and Common Quaker. Look forward to having more species visit as we warm and settle. That and following the progress of the nesting birds we know about while looking out for signs of where our other avian residents – wagtails, dunnocks, robins etc – will be bringing their broods into the world.